Does It Matter That Your Professor Is Part Time?

Adjunct Faculty

I come with an alternate twist to the notion of part time instructional choices. As a part-time adjunct member of a local college faculty and with a doctorate in education, I cannot afford to teach at the University full-time at this point in my career. After one has invested so many hours in public education, it is not feasible to make the jump to the college level full-time until retirement (a $20,000/year pay cut for me). I have the best of both worlds, daily, hands-on experience with Middle School aged students which transfers over to my instructional methodology for preparing pre-service teachers at the post-secondary level.

My questions exactly!!

I am a doctorate student writing a disortation on the theori that many of the professionals that are teaching as adjuncts bring much needed cutting edge knowledge into the classroom along with their personal experience on the paticular subject they are teaching. This is great. However, they are lacking in pedagogical skilss needed to teach students of all agesa and I pose the question that they need to be given basic pedagogical knowledge and skills to round out the complete package.

The conditions fulltime "part-timers" face can cause burn out. I'm talking about the traveling time and the net pay, which is so far below the cost of living in Washington State that it should be criminal. But, despite all that, I'm back at a new community college after four years. I'm loving it, but I don't have the same illusions that I did when I started. I'm rested and having a good time.

The point is that teachers who are burned out will not teach as well as when they are rewarded, and not burned out. Sure, we can find the motivation to make the sacrifices to our own lives in order to better others, but sooner or later the wheels will fall off and the car just wont drive like it used to. This is true both metaphorically and literally. I have never bought a new car and I've put plenty of miles on those old junkers. The sad part is that nobody really cares. There's plenty of drivers that will take your place when you burn out. So, my advice to adjuncts is to enjoy the ride and don't rely just on teaching.

The one thing no one has talked about is the state budget. We are employees of the state, not just the colleges and universities. Ultimately the policy makers are setting themselves up for a major lawsuit. My prediction is that the unions will wake up when they realize that fulltimers are the expendable ones. Think about it. Why should the state, during a time of economic crisis, keep tenure track workers when colleges and universities can be run with full-time part-timers. It will be interesting to see what struggling states like California will do. Hopefully this magazine will continue to cover the issue!!!

Strangely the same rules of funding do not apply to k-12 education, even though educating parents and future parents is a better way to improve k-12 education than small class sizes and standardized testing. Parents tend to hold their kids to the same standards they hold themselves to. I believe in standards, but all the rhetoric in the k-12 system about raising standards does not give credence to the fact that standards need to be consistently upheld by a mentor and the k-12 system is set up where students cycle through teachers all the time. There is nobody like a parent to uphold the standards and there is no way better for them to uphold the standards than to get a quality education.

In conclusion, all higher ed. teachers should get paid as well as they would in the k-12 system.

adjunct professors

In teacher education classes part-time professors do an outstanding job. Grad students learn a lot from "mentor" teachers from local school districts who moonlight as adjunct professors. These professionals have hands-on experience as school teachers and many have masters degrees. They are a welcome and effective addition to our teacher colleges and universities.

Adjunct profs are low quality

Adjunct profs are often juggling a day time career, teaching at night, and working on a Ph.D. I've had several adjunct profs, and they were usually more interested in advancing their career and rolling in the extra dough (typically releasing students after just one hour in a three hour night class) than helping students learn.

So, here's a message to U of BlaBla, just keep constructing those new athletic facilities because that's really going to end the economic recession, not innovation and academic leadership.

Adjunct Professors

Colleges and universities should offer part time teaching opportunities for individuals with only a BS degree but who offer a wealth of other specialized knowledge. It is unfortunate that Phd's screen out these extremely competent people under the myth that higher degrees means higher smarts.

A few undergraduates stop at the BS because they do not like the elite cultures. They simply enjoy knowledge and truth.

It should be possible to create windows of opportunity for these folks without destroying or undermining the hierarchy of the university. It is time to think along those lines to strengthen our nation.

"Professional" Professors

It seems that some tenured professors believe that anyone that does not spend their life teaching is not fit to teach. It has always been my belief that a college education is meant to prepare our young people for a future in their chosen field. Academics is not a static profession. Not all tenured professors are required to actively participate in the field in which they teach. This professional isolation is not beneficial to the students. The advantage to students, which is why we teach, by having an adjunct is that the professor is in constant contact with other professionals in the field, thereby enabling them to inject valuable, real-time experience into classroom lessons.

One statement in particular caused me to write this letter. “But there's also considerable evidence that the proliferation of adjunct professors—many of whom don't have Ph.D.'s—is dumbing down many classrooms and contributing to grade inflation.” Does simply having a Ph.D. really make a professor a better teacher? A life spent exclusively in academics can severely limit and individual’s understanding of the nuances of a profession that are only obtained through years of hands-on work. I would hope that any University that has this “considerable evidence” of underperforming adjunct professors would simply not renew their contracts and find another, better performing, professional to take their place. Teaching is an art form and even some of the greatest minds in a profession might be “under performing” teachers and simply making a blanket statement that all adjunct professors are less competent at teaching than tenured professors is a gross misstatement.

No more part-time teaching for me.

I have finally learned my lesson after several years as a part-time university instructor and will never again accept one of these positions. There is simply too much economic risk involved. After being assigned to teach a course in organizational behavior, I invested about 40 hours in preparation but was told at the last minute that another faculty member would teach my course instead.

Forty hours worth of productivity and no pay! That is not how our economic system is supposed to function. What are part-time faculty members supposed to do? Are they supposed to refrain from doing any preliminary preparation until they are absolutely certain they are going to get paid?

How would you know you had a good education

To the poster that wrote he had attended a small college with mostly adjunct instructors I would ask how would you know you had received a very good education? Compared to what? In business many of those ivory tower eggheads also have significant practical experience. Look, there are some cases where adjunct faculty are preferred, specifially highly specialized classes where an individuals practical experience can come into play ... something along the lines of a Bank Management course for example. But, just re-read some of the posts from adjuncts here ... this is a very slippery slope and is NOT in the student's best interests.

Insult to Injury

I started to write I am a full-time adjunct English instructor at a south Florida community college. But how many courses constitute full-time?

My institution of course provides no health benefits and for three courses I net about $292 per week. Fortunately I have other income sources. This community college does provide standard benefits to full-time employees, faculty and non-faculty. These employees also have the option to purchase insurance for their PETS!!!

I thought maybe I could get a full-time faculty member to adopt me as a pet and then I could get some coverage. Woof-woof....